


The State of Our Universe

by Seph_on_an_Irrational_Planet



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Expanded Universe)
Genre: Episode: s05e13 The Big Bang, Gen, Missing Scene, The Silence, Time War, or Missing Adventure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 11:44:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seph_on_an_Irrational_Planet/pseuds/Seph_on_an_Irrational_Planet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, the Big Bang 2 plan backfired. A bit. Now the Doctor and a Roman Rory have to travel across a wonky universe that’s slowly falling apart at the seams to find out what happened to Amy and the Pandorica, get them back, and try to reboot the universe again before it remembers that it should've imploded awhile ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**102 A.D. ****  
**Rory didn’t really wake up. It was closer to realizing he was already awake and staring up at the stars, vaguely wondering what he was doing lying on the ground and there really shouldn’t be any stars shouldn’t there. Then he remembered he recognized the place.  
  
“102 A.D. Why is it still 102 A.D.?” he said aloud. Rory looked down and found armor instead of his usual clothes, “and I’m still a bloody Roman.”  
  
“Ah, yes.” The Doctor was standing a few feet away, sonic screwdriver buzzing at nothing in particular. Rory was certain it wasn’t doing anything but making the Doctor look like he was doing something. “I was afraid this would happen. But, no worries. We can just try again.” Rory blinked as the Doctor scampered back over to the entrance to the under-Henge.  
  
“Try again?” Rory asked as the Doctor remembered he was there and ran over to help him to his feet.  
  
“Well, you know, despite what modern television may suggest, rebooting the universe is a rather difficult and wonky process. So there may have been a 35% chance of success, it was the best I could do with what I had to work with,” he said, patting Rory’s cheek. Gesturing around, he continued, “but look! We’re in luck! Instead of complete failure leaving us all non-existent, the universe sort of rebooted to its last save point, as it were. Though,” his brow furrowed as Rory stared blankly at him, “it looks as if it might have gotten a bit corrupted in the process.”  
  
“So it half-worked? Enough for us to try again?” The Doctor looked at him for a moment.  
  
“Close enough. Come on, let’s go get that vortex manipulator!” The Doctor dashed away to the dark passage into the ground while Rory absorbed what that meant before following the Doctor. _Another two thousand years. ___But that thought quickly drained out of his head when he ran into the Doctor’s back at the bottom of the stairs. Eyes scanned an empty room.  
  
“Doctor? Where’s Amy? And the Pandorica?”  
  
“I have absolutely no idea.”  
  
Everything was as it was before. The Auton Romans scattered around the room frozen in various states of flight or surprise, the dead Cyberman still pinned to the door with a gladius, River’s vortex manipulator lying on the floor near the center of the room.  
  
But no Pandorica.  
  
 _And no Amy. ___  
  
The Doctor began scampering around the room in that curiously crouched way that made Rory wonder if he’d ever been able to run straight, waving the sonic around. Rory stood by, silently waiting as a strange numbness began to spread from his chest.  
  
 _And no Amy. ___  
  
“There’s some residual energy here. Not exactly a teleport signature, could just be background radiation from the universe falling apart, but it’s worth a try. Actually that could be good if it’s unique enough ‘cos then we could feed the resonance structure in to the TARDIS and trace it back to the source which hopefully is the Pandorica. Of course that would mean that we had the TARDIS and I’ve just remembered that we don’t so that’s a problem that will have to be addressed sooner or later. Preferably sooner because I’m rather fond of her, but then we’d have to reboot the universe again which is what we’re trying to do already so we might have to find a different approach. Oh!” The Doctor suddenly stopped and ran back over to Rory, the green light of the sonic jolting him out of his thoughts. “I’ve just had a thought!” he said as he ran the light over Rory’s skin.  
  
“What now!?” said Rory snapped and then regretted, but the Doctor noticed neither as he looked intently at the tip. Stepping back to give himself some space, Rory took a breath and asked again. This time the Doctor looked up.  
  
“You’re human again. You’re not plastic. Oh that’s… oh that’s really bizarre.” Rory rolled his eyes.  
  
“Only you would think that bizarre. Hold on, why is that? You said that some things were different now because the universe was ‘corrupted.’ What did that mean?”  
  
“Well,” the Doctor began, gesturing vaguely, “what we did helped a bit. The universe is… different now. Bits of how it should be have fused with how it is.” The Doctor paused, hoping he was making sense and gestured more wildly at Rory’s puzzled face. “We’re no longer fading away like last time or at least it shouldn’t for a while. We’ve got enough of a pause now to figure out what went wrong.” A light bulb seemed to light up behind Rory’s eyes.  
  
“And some things are different. Like my being human again and Amy and the Pandorica not being here.” The Doctor smiled approvingly, brushing past Rory with the vortex manipulator in hand to head back outside.  
  
“Now you’ve got it!” Rory hurried up the stairs behind him.  
  
“So it’s possible she and the Pandorica weren’t taken? Perhaps she just ‘spawned’ somewhere else.” The Doctor scratched at his cheek, turning to look at Rory in confusion. “I mean, the universe acknowledged that I’m supposed to be human,” Rory explained until his face fell and his voice with it. “Maybe it got the bit about her being alive as well.” The Doctor clapped a reassuring hand on Rory’s shoulder.  
  
“I think that’s a very real possibility, “ the Doctor said, his voice losing that manic quality it always had for once. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s sitting in the Pandorica right now shouting for someone to let her out. All that we need to do is find her.” The Doctor looked at the sky again, turning in circles and punching numbers in to the vortex manipulator.  
  
“So how do we do that? Where do we even start?” Finishing his calculations, the Doctor walked over to stand in front of Rory and offered his arm, which Rory took.  
  
“Well, we’ve only got the one lead: _silence will fall ___. And I know of one place that is guaranteed to have at least some information about it. A Library.”  
  
Before Rory could ask for some clarification, they disappeared in a flash of light.  
  
The Library, the Doctor knew, would be overrun by Vashta Nerada and permanently closed early in Earth’s 51st century. Fortunately, with a vortex manipulator (or any form of time travel really) you can go there before it happens and have a perfectly grand time. At least that’s how it’d usually be for the Doctor if not for the terrible memories that clung to the place. Still he had a job to do and the Library was the best place to do it. Fortunately, when he and Rory arrived, the Doctor was astonished to find out how different the Library looked only twenty years before the event.  
  
“Why would you even redecorate a whole planet? Redecorating never goes well.” he wondered aloud before heading to the desk nearby. Rory glanced at him, but didn’t say anything, deciding he’d rather take in where they were than bother with the Doctor’s interior decorating preferences. They’d arrived in an immense atrium that looked like a cross between a train station and a hotel lobby. There was a long counter to his left with attendants sitting behind screens helping patrons. The entrance to the Mag-Rail station as well as some souvenir shops and a couple of restaurants were to his right. To the back was a huge grand staircase leading to a second floor that circled around in a giant ring above him. Looking up, Rory saw that there were almost too many floors to count spiraling up to a magnificent domed ceiling with a massive skylight in the middle surrounded by fantastical murals. Turning around, Rory saw a large arrival and departure board not unlike one in an airport indicating the next teleporter times to various galactic hubs along with a large, slowly rotating globe with the major sections of the Library and rail routes clearly marked. Interspersed with the rest were information kiosks with keyboards as well as various other inputs for the accessibility of other species. Accompanying these kiosks were curved statues with a strange, swiveling, egg-shaped attachment on top. There was something odd about them, but, before Rory could puzzle it out, one seemed to catch him staring at it and turn to face him _ohgodisthata- ___  
  
“Maybe it’s all the people,” said the Doctor, interrupting Rory’s thoughts before they could go spiraling further into the Uncanny Valley. “There were a lot less people here last time. They do a lot to make the place less spooky. Anyway… Rory! Quit gaping and come here. I’ve gotten us a hotel room. I have a feeling this is going to take some time so we might as well rest and make a plan of attack for tomorrow.” The Doctor produced a small, metal sphere that he handed to Rory. “Our room is 24Ω1. It’s easiest if you take the lift which the sphere should open. Everything is open at all hours if you need anything. I’ve got something I wanted to check out, but you should be able to handle yourself. You’re not a Centurion for nothing.” He patted Rory on the shoulder before heading towards the Mag-Rail entrance.  
  
“Doctor I’ve been meaning to-“ started Rory, but the Doctor had already disappeared around the corner. “Talk to you about that actually,” he sighed before heading up to the room, exhausted and ready to put the day behind him. 


	2. Chapter 2

Bernice Summerfield woke to the ceiling of her garish orange and blue tent softly lit by the light of early morning. There was a brief moment of confusion as she struggled to remember where she was, half sitting up and scanning the tent for clues before it dawned on her.  
  
“Oh right, Heaven.” Heaven was alright when it came to planets. It wasn’t as idyllic as the name suggested, but it was nice enough in a sleepy sort of way. Being on the edge of human space meant little in the way of night life, but people kept to themselves and asked few questions. There were also some amazing ruins that drove archeologists mad which was why, Bernice remembered, she was here. She had come to Heaven what seemed like a lifetime ago on another dig and, after a crisis and nearly getting killed and all that jazz, she had met the Doctor and her life became much more interesting. That brought Bernice up short and she shook her head. I haven’t thought about the Doctor in years. Shaking off the strange feeling that line of thought had left in her spine, Bernice dressed and left the tent to get ready for work.  
  
Work was, well, more of a hobby really. There wasn’t an actual dig which meant no grant money and no interns, but traveling with the Doctor did have some perks, one of which being decent financial security upon leaving the TARDIS. However, Bernice suspected that had more to do with the Doctor having no idea how money even worked and ended up with more than necessary as often as he didn’t have any at all and felt the need to spread it around. Still, who was she to complain? It gave her opportunities she wouldn’t have had otherwise on a professor’s salary and in the field was where she felt most at home. So here she was, tracking down a giant, menacing cube-prison that everyone was sure was only a fairytale. Except it wasn’t and Bernice was sure she’d found it.  
  
Everybody knew about Heaven’s vast ruins from the planet’s previous and long extinct inhabitants. What wasn’t so well known was the fact that a lot of these ruins extended far into the ground, creating vast systems of caves both natural and artificial. It was these that Bernice had been exploring on vague hints in several ancient texts describing a terrible trickster warrior who had been imprisoned for the good of the universe. Normally Bernice wouldn’t go for that sort of thing, terrible trickster warriors tend to be bad news, but considering ‘they’ had been imprisoned by an impressive coalition of every species that Bernice had definitely found herself on the wrong side of at least once, well, it wasn’t as if she could take the chance the Doctor had actually gotten himself stuck somewhere he couldn’t get out of. Tugging on ropes she’d tied to anchors in the cave wall that allowed her to get in and out of the cave system to check their stability, she began her descent into the cave, certain this time she’d gotten the location of the Pandorica right.  
  
“There you are,” Bernice’s voice echoing into the distance as her headlamp caught the long, black edge. Throwing her duffle bag of equipment on the floor and tossing some hand-sized grav globes around for more light, she studied her find. “Pandorica is about eight to nine feet on each side, made primarily of a black stone that I can’t identify, and accented with green, glowing, interlocking bits that imply deeper security mechanisms, “she spoke into a wrist-mounted voice recorder. “No obvious way of opening it from the outside, but I’ve only just got here so what do I know?” Dropping her arm to her hip, she began looking for a way in, only to raise her arm to speak again. “And, for the record, I do genuinely think a dear friend is trapped in here and he’s definitely not a bad person so, if this all goes horribly wrong and someone finds this recording next to my corpse along with the smoldering ruins of all civilization, I’m really sorry.”  
  
Resuming her walk around the Pandorica and having no luck finding the “Press here to release prisoner” button, she stopped back at the front again. “Okay, maybe if I-“ she started as she began to run her hands over the surface, feeling for some hidden release. At her touch a mechanical whirring accompanied by loud thunks started as the outer gears started to spin. Bernice could only watch as the unlocking process continued and a shaft of white light started to shine from one corner. Once the Pandorica had settled back into silence, Bernice slowly edged around to the open corner, poking her head out to see what was inside.  
  
“Doctor?” The red-haired woman in the chair stirred awake, pulling at the restraints on her wrists before noticing Bernice.  
  
“No, companion. You?” Bernice let out a breath and came out around the side fully, as the woman’s restraints sprang open and she got up, rubbing at the imprints they left.  
  
“Bernice Summerfield. Professor, archeologist, retired time traveler,” said Bernice, holding out a hand to the other woman. She took it after a moment’s hesitation.  
  
“Amy Pond. Uh... current time traveler I guess. I’m assuming we’re talking about the same Doctor. Tweed, bowtie, probably wearing a stupid hat or three?” Bernice laughed.  
  
“Not back in my day, no, but that sounds like him. Sorry but, if you don’t mind my asking, how’d you end up in there? The legends about this thing aren’t exactly friendly,” Amy sighed, stretching her shoulders.  
  
“That is a very complicated story. Do you mind if we get out of here and a cup of tea first?” Agreeing whole-heartedly, Bernice led Amy back to the surface.  
  
o0o0o0o  
  
“So tell me if I have this right. An alliance of bad guys lured the Doctor in with the legend of the Pandorica with the intention to trap him there using memories taken from your house in an attempt to prevent him from destroying the universe, but since it was actually the TARDIS exploding in the time vortex that destroys the universe, they end up causing what they wanted to stop. Meanwhile something got a hold of the TARDIS, blew it up in the vortex, causing all of history to start collapsing, every star to explode, and whatever else, but, since Earth was the location of the explosion, it managed to survive long enough for the Doctor to escape and devise a plan to create a second Big Bang by flying the Pandorica into the exploding TARDIS which had served as Earth’s sun for two thousand years. And your previously thought dead fiancé came back as a plastic Roman.” Amy nodded from over her mug. Both she and Bernice were sitting opposite each other on small, folding camp chairs in Bernice’s tent.  
“That’s just about it, yeah. Except for this part,” Amy replied, gesturing around her before taking a sip. “Don’t know what to make of this except that Big Bang Two didn’t work but somehow we’re not all dead.”  
  
"That would explain why I've been feeling so off lately," said Bernice. Amy gave her blank look. "Traveling in the TARDIS chang-"  
  
"-es the way you see the universe. Yeah I got that, but how? I mean, I thought 'sensing wrongs in Time' was just a Doctor thing."  
  
"Oh it is, if you're talking about using it in any sort of useful way." Bernice rubbed her forehead, "this is just a new way of making Bernice feel like she's hungover without the fun stuff the night before." She let out a sigh, "just being around Time Lords enough starts turning you into one of them. Figures."  
  
"So you're not big on Time Lords huh."  
  
"Hell no. They're arrogant, pretentious, condescending, and apathetic towards anything that doesn't directly concern them. Besides the Doctor, of course," she added with a smirk. "Though he qualifies as some of those depending on the day."  
  
Amy smiled at that before asking, "so you've met other Time Lords. Before the... Bad Day, as he calls it."  
  
"A few. Enough to know I don't want to hang around them for an extended period of time." Bernice sighed again and looked up at the sky, "though, even they didn't deserve that. Hell, maybe they did, but it still shouldn't have happened. I didn't even realize what was going on until way later. I puked my guts out for a week, then found out the Daleks had all but vanished from everyone's memories and into urban legend and that was rough. I can't imagine what it did to the Doctor." Bernice finished off the rest of her tea and took Amy’s empty mug, placing them both in her small, automated dish cleaner. Wiping her hands off on a towel, she turned back to Amy. “Well it’s no use worrying over things we can’t change. Now we’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do about the Pandorica. I don’t suppose you know where the Doctor might be and how we can get to him.”  
“Not unless this tent is a TARDIS, no.” Bernice ran her fingers through her hair in frustration.  
  
“Well then, I suppose the best chance we have is a trick I have to admit I’m a fan of and trying to figure out what we can while we wait for the Doctor to show up. I’ll pack up and start looking for the first ships off-world.” Bernice turned around and started throwing random items into bags.  
  
“Sorry, where are we going exactly?” Amy asked, folding up her chair and handing it to Bernice.  
  
“Well I’m going to find some important, bound to be in a museum eventually thing to deface and hope the Doctor finds it and has better transport than we do. Meanwhile we can try and make sense of the whole “Silence will fall” business. I may have some favors to call on. I swear I’ve heard that somewhere before.”


End file.
